Passive Voice

When do we use the passive voice?

We use the passive when we don’t know, we don´t want to reveal it, it is evident, or it isn’t important, who does the action. We also use it when we want to give prominence to the ACTION rather than the verb. The passive is much more frequently used in English than in Spanish.

1. BASIC FORMATION: What is the form of the passive voice?

To change an active sentence to a passive one we have to follow three easy steps:

STEP 1:The object of the active becomes the SUBJECT of the passive.
e.g.  My father cleaned the car.
       The car was cleaned by my father.

STEP 2: The subject of the active becomes the AGENT of the passive preceded by the preposition "by"
 e.g. The manager fired the cleaner.
        The cleaner was fired by the manager.

STEP 3: To form the passive we need to emphasize the object and NOT the subject. To do this we need the VERB "TO BE" in the same tense that the verb in the active( i.e. if the ctuve verb is in the present perfect we put the verb "to be" in this same tense) and the past participle of the main verb.

form of "to be" + past participle = passive voice

e.g.  Carlos writes a letter. (present simole)
       The letter is written  ( to be in the present simple + past participle of "write")


The following tenses do not have a passive form: Present perfect continuous, Past perfect continuous, Future continuous and Future Perfect continuous, and, therefore, in the passive we will use their simple forms.


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Explanation
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Advanced tenses
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2) Active sentences with two objects in passive.

When there are two objects in an active sentence, there are two possible active sentences and two possible passive sentences.
Possibility 1: The professor gave the students the books.
Possibility 2: The professor gave the books to the students.

There are two objects in each of the following sentences:
object 1 = indirect object: the students
object 2 = direct object: the books

An indirect object is very often a person, a direct object a thing. When a direct object is followed by an indirect one, we put "to" in front of the indirect object.

3. Impersonal Passive - It is said ...

Verbs without an object (intransitive verb) normally cannot form a personal passive sentence (as there is no object that can become the subject of the passive sentence). If you want to use an intransitive verb in passive voice, you need an impersonal construction – therefore this passive is called Impersonal Passive.

Plus, sometimes when you are reporting what people say or believe, you don ́t know, or you don ́t want to say, who exactly the `people ́ are. So you use an impersonal construction:

People believe that thousands of birds died.

The same idea can be expressed by using the passive in two different ways:

a) subject + passive of reporting verb + `to ́ infinitive

Hundreds of thousands of birds are believed to have died.

b) It + passive of reporting verb + that + clause

It is believed that hundreds of thousands of birds died.

Some other reporting verbs that can be used in this way are:

calculate, claim, consider, discover, estimate, expect, feel, hope, know, prove, report, say, show, think, understand, etc.

- With present t reference, the passive is followed by the present infinitive:

People think that Johnson is in Cardiff.

Johnson is thought to be in Cardiff.

- With past reference, the passive is followed by the pas t infinitive:

People believe that Johnson left Cardiff last month
Johnson is believed to have left Cardiff last month

- Present and past continuous infinitives are also used:

They think that the forger is living in Florence.

The forger is thought to be living in Florence.

People know that the suspect has been dealing with drugs.

The suspect is known to have been dealing with drugs.

- Passive infinitives can also appear:

 People believe that the portrait was painted by Vermeer.

The portrait is believed to have been painted by Vermeer.   

They think that the staff are given a bonus whenever they have to work overtime.

The staff are thought to be given a bonus whenever they have to work overtime.

- The reporting verb can also be past:

People considered the government had spent too much.

The government was considered to have paid too much.

Reported and impersonal passive structures from Sandra Àlvarez

4. Verbs with prepositions in passive

When we put an active sentence, where a preposition follows after the verb (e.g. break into, look after), into passive - the preposition remains immediately after the verb.
Someone broke into the pet shop.
The pet shop was broken into.

5. Causative Passive. Have/get something done

Used to refer to actions that are done FOR the subject rather than by the agent.

a.Have something done

I  don ́t know how to repair cars, so I ́m having mine repaired at the garage round the corner.

b. Get something done

I really must go to the hairdressers´ to get my hair cut